BREAKING NEWS: There’s a new crime wave sweeping the country! In a troubling development, average citizens have taken the law into their own hands. Just yesterday, the police in Goa uncovered a crime ring made up entirely of retired grandmothers who smuggle homemade fish curry in innocuous-looking tiffin boxes. Over the weekend, the Punjab police raided a number of private parties in Ludhiana and found teenagers shooting up butter chicken gravy straight into their veins. And last week, the Army in Kashmir used intelligence reports to intercept Pakistani thugs trying to sneak in a huge shipment of counterfeit rogan josh from across the border, so that their agents here could use it to poison the minds of misguided but innocent Indian youths.
Whenever our national outrage mode is turned to DEFCON 3, the discussion immediately devolves into a cliché-ridden shoutfest. It’s like we’re stuck in some sort of terrible Ramsey brothers-directed version of Groundhog Day where we wake up to the same people making similar arguments over and over again about every issue.
It’s deja vu all over again
Take the conversation about the meat ban. Instead of having a dialogue about the state abetting religious and cultural chauvinism and the continuous shrinking of our fundamental rights, everyone was intent on passing the buck.
The Congress and the Shiv Sena immediately found common ground to take on the government and displayed a newly-discovered zeal for respecting personal choice. How dare you continue a policy that was also condoned by governments led by us? You know you’ve crossed a line when the Shiv Sena accuses you of trampling on people’s rights. It’s like Attila the Hun calling someone barbaric.
The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena had the brilliant idea of protesting outside Jain temples by setting up food stalls that gave away free non-vegetarian food as long as you ate it there – because not only do they not get what people were angry about, they are also incapable of making a point without being rabid about it.
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s twitter army kept reminding people outraging about the ban that their party had nothing to do with it. Okay, then! Thank you for providing us with this valuable piece of information. Everybody, shut down your twitter machine and go home. Let the record state that the BJP government was forced to try to extend the ban from four to eight days by the previous Congress government and Jawaharlal Nehru’s ghost.
It's really baffling why anyone would be sensitive to any new clampdown when just earlier this week the Union Minister of Culture went on a media blitzkrieg talking about how his government would like to preserve the country’s culture like it was a jar of pickles. He promised that he would do everything in his power to take the country back to whatever previous century his preferred way of life existed in. So yeah, no need to be alarmed, people. Here, have some steamed vegetables instead.
Not that the government had logical reasons to back their actions. The best explanation they could come up with was “actually some people think non-veg foodstuffs are gross and wanted a ban for more days than before and we were like okay, boss, that sounds very reasonable. Do you also want fries with that?” When your laws and policies are based on whims and fancies of such people, there are no logical arguments in support of them.
First they came for the people who eat beef
Our founding fathers envisaged our country as a liberal democracy wherein they would adopt a legal framework that would help reverse thousands of years of institutionalised bigotry and the consolidation of political power in the hands of a few. Even though they understood that real democracy couldn’t take root without the liberal part of the equation, they neglected to put enough robust protections for it in the document that forms the basis of our laws. And over the years, various governments have used those very ambiguities to further dilute citizens’ freedoms.
Separation of the state and religious institutions is one of the most important pillars of a secular, liberal democracy. However, in our country, secularism has become an excuse for the state to adopt all religions, giving preachers of false gods veto power over the rights of their fellow citizens.
If you give one religion a concession, others will want one too. It’s like opening up a Pandora’s box of stupid diktats laid down by simpletons thousands of years ago. Not letting other people have what you can’t have is a basic tenet of most religions. Everyone loves a game of competitive bigotry.
So no one was surprised when other state governments began to announce copycat meat bans of their own. The Rajasthan government did the real-life version of writing “first” under a viral YouTube video as it unilaterally banned the sale and consumption of meat for four days. The Haryana government banned slaughter and consumption of meat but had to retract the ban on the same day because someone floated a rumour that eating non-vegetarian food increases the chance of giving birth to a male child. And Gujarat just added another day to its annual meat ban. Because it’s Gujarat. It doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone. It can take away people’s rights anytime it wants, no questions asked. Stop staring at it with anger and disbelief or it’ll ban eye contact too. Capiche?
We are the champions
In a country possessing a smorgasbord of self-righteous dogmatists, perhaps the most obnoxious are sanctimonious prigs who consider themselves to be upstanding people based on the mere fact that they prefer to order vegetarian biryani over its classic mutton version whenever they visit a restaurant. They believe that this makes them more pious than other people in the eyes of their favourite imaginary friend in the sky.
This faux piousness feeds into their belief that they have a right to stop other people from committing what in their worldview is essentially a sin. They sincerely believe that just because they consider themselves devout and reverent, they should have more legitimacy in the eyes of the law. That their religious zeal gives them the moral authority to tell other people what they can or cannot do.
In this country, expressing human want is the worst thing you could possibly do. We’re all supposed to suffer through life like a character from a Satayajit Ray movie. Only miserable people are noble! Anyone who seeks even a modicum of happiness and fulfilment is an evil monster causing the downfall of our ancient culture.
The most egregious though, were those people who let us know that the world isn’t going to fall apart if “some” people are denied an essential part of their daily diet for a couple of days. Only a religious person can be deluded enough to think that millions of people should abstain from doing things that they don’t understand.
Now, since we’re all tired of reminding our more bigoted citizens that their religious or cultural beliefs don’t give them the right to impose their restrictions on everybody else, we should put the onus on them to remember this. So, in the spirit of forgiveness, I present to you an updated version of Mahatma Gandhi’s talisman for the modern age:
Whenever you are in doubt about whether you should ask a pliable government to ban something because you can’t stand other people being happy, ask yourself the following questions: What the hell is wrong with me? Why is my life in such a sad state that I have an urgent need to take something away from other people? Will making life harder for my fellow citizens give me even a modicum of control over my own desolate existence? Will the satisfaction of denying other people their rights fill the large void in my heart? Will it finally make people respect me? Will I like it if someone bans something I like?
Then you will find that all your doubts melt away.
We welcome your comments at
letters@scroll.in.
Whenever our national outrage mode is turned to DEFCON 3, the discussion immediately devolves into a cliché-ridden shoutfest. It’s like we’re stuck in some sort of terrible Ramsey brothers-directed version of Groundhog Day where we wake up to the same people making similar arguments over and over again about every issue.
It’s deja vu all over again
Take the conversation about the meat ban. Instead of having a dialogue about the state abetting religious and cultural chauvinism and the continuous shrinking of our fundamental rights, everyone was intent on passing the buck.
The Congress and the Shiv Sena immediately found common ground to take on the government and displayed a newly-discovered zeal for respecting personal choice. How dare you continue a policy that was also condoned by governments led by us? You know you’ve crossed a line when the Shiv Sena accuses you of trampling on people’s rights. It’s like Attila the Hun calling someone barbaric.
The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena had the brilliant idea of protesting outside Jain temples by setting up food stalls that gave away free non-vegetarian food as long as you ate it there – because not only do they not get what people were angry about, they are also incapable of making a point without being rabid about it.
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s twitter army kept reminding people outraging about the ban that their party had nothing to do with it. Okay, then! Thank you for providing us with this valuable piece of information. Everybody, shut down your twitter machine and go home. Let the record state that the BJP government was forced to try to extend the ban from four to eight days by the previous Congress government and Jawaharlal Nehru’s ghost.
It's really baffling why anyone would be sensitive to any new clampdown when just earlier this week the Union Minister of Culture went on a media blitzkrieg talking about how his government would like to preserve the country’s culture like it was a jar of pickles. He promised that he would do everything in his power to take the country back to whatever previous century his preferred way of life existed in. So yeah, no need to be alarmed, people. Here, have some steamed vegetables instead.
Not that the government had logical reasons to back their actions. The best explanation they could come up with was “actually some people think non-veg foodstuffs are gross and wanted a ban for more days than before and we were like okay, boss, that sounds very reasonable. Do you also want fries with that?” When your laws and policies are based on whims and fancies of such people, there are no logical arguments in support of them.
First they came for the people who eat beef
Our founding fathers envisaged our country as a liberal democracy wherein they would adopt a legal framework that would help reverse thousands of years of institutionalised bigotry and the consolidation of political power in the hands of a few. Even though they understood that real democracy couldn’t take root without the liberal part of the equation, they neglected to put enough robust protections for it in the document that forms the basis of our laws. And over the years, various governments have used those very ambiguities to further dilute citizens’ freedoms.
Separation of the state and religious institutions is one of the most important pillars of a secular, liberal democracy. However, in our country, secularism has become an excuse for the state to adopt all religions, giving preachers of false gods veto power over the rights of their fellow citizens.
If you give one religion a concession, others will want one too. It’s like opening up a Pandora’s box of stupid diktats laid down by simpletons thousands of years ago. Not letting other people have what you can’t have is a basic tenet of most religions. Everyone loves a game of competitive bigotry.
So no one was surprised when other state governments began to announce copycat meat bans of their own. The Rajasthan government did the real-life version of writing “first” under a viral YouTube video as it unilaterally banned the sale and consumption of meat for four days. The Haryana government banned slaughter and consumption of meat but had to retract the ban on the same day because someone floated a rumour that eating non-vegetarian food increases the chance of giving birth to a male child. And Gujarat just added another day to its annual meat ban. Because it’s Gujarat. It doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone. It can take away people’s rights anytime it wants, no questions asked. Stop staring at it with anger and disbelief or it’ll ban eye contact too. Capiche?
We are the champions
In a country possessing a smorgasbord of self-righteous dogmatists, perhaps the most obnoxious are sanctimonious prigs who consider themselves to be upstanding people based on the mere fact that they prefer to order vegetarian biryani over its classic mutton version whenever they visit a restaurant. They believe that this makes them more pious than other people in the eyes of their favourite imaginary friend in the sky.
This faux piousness feeds into their belief that they have a right to stop other people from committing what in their worldview is essentially a sin. They sincerely believe that just because they consider themselves devout and reverent, they should have more legitimacy in the eyes of the law. That their religious zeal gives them the moral authority to tell other people what they can or cannot do.
In this country, expressing human want is the worst thing you could possibly do. We’re all supposed to suffer through life like a character from a Satayajit Ray movie. Only miserable people are noble! Anyone who seeks even a modicum of happiness and fulfilment is an evil monster causing the downfall of our ancient culture.
The most egregious though, were those people who let us know that the world isn’t going to fall apart if “some” people are denied an essential part of their daily diet for a couple of days. Only a religious person can be deluded enough to think that millions of people should abstain from doing things that they don’t understand.
Now, since we’re all tired of reminding our more bigoted citizens that their religious or cultural beliefs don’t give them the right to impose their restrictions on everybody else, we should put the onus on them to remember this. So, in the spirit of forgiveness, I present to you an updated version of Mahatma Gandhi’s talisman for the modern age:
Whenever you are in doubt about whether you should ask a pliable government to ban something because you can’t stand other people being happy, ask yourself the following questions: What the hell is wrong with me? Why is my life in such a sad state that I have an urgent need to take something away from other people? Will making life harder for my fellow citizens give me even a modicum of control over my own desolate existence? Will the satisfaction of denying other people their rights fill the large void in my heart? Will it finally make people respect me? Will I like it if someone bans something I like?
Then you will find that all your doubts melt away.